Crafternoon at Pitt Rivers

Crafternoon has recently come to an end at the Pitt Rivers Museum after a successful three-month stint as part of the Need / Make / Use project. The outcome of our congregations is a Pitt Rivers-inspired quilt, which has been donated to the Museum.

© Pitt Rivers Museum

What is Crafternoon?
Crafternoon began in Oxford in 2012. We are a group of parents/caregivers and young kids who meet once a week. Crafternoon combines childcare with co-working for parents and caregivers who have a creative practice or an interest in crafts. These crafts are undertaken at various levels from hobbyist to professional. This rich mix of experience and expertise has led to the transfer of skills and sharing of ideas. The aim of Crafternoon is to normalize the idea of having children present while adults are productive in another task, taking the popular idea of "co-working" to another level by including our children. 

Crafternoon and Pitt Rivers

Holding these sessions at the Pitt Rivers Museum couldn't have been a better fit. Not only do many of the objects in the Museum’s collection have a direct connection with parenting and childhood, many of the objects will have been produced by hand, in community settings, in the presence of children.  

For our residency at the Museum we worked on a group project - a quilt. The imagery depicted in the quilt was inspired by objects in the galleries which relate to parenthood, childhood and co-working. With the help of Maya Herbolzheimer, VERVE Activities and Outreach Officer, we were introduced to these objects through object handling and tours of the displays. We used a series of questions to think about the 'biography' of these objects and brainstormed some possible visual representations of these biographies.

With the help of our expert seamstress and quilter, Caroline King we depicted our chosen objects using appliqué and embroidery techniques. Each participant worked on an individual square which was then sewn into one large quilt. Some of us had experience sewing and some had none – we even had contributions from some of the kids themselves! 

Every Crafternoon session is an experiment. We are never sure what the dynamics of the group will be like. But the stars were well aligned for these sessions! As the adults worked, the children got on with playing or contributing to the creative process alongside the adults. It was a calm enjoyable atmosphere. 

Our quilt has thirteen individual squares depicting baby carriers, a wolf's tooth amulet, moccasins, and a Haida totem pole - to name a few. A wolf's tooth amulet was the first object we looked at and discussed. It originates from France and was worn by children to ward off febrile convulsions caused by high fevers that can occur during teething. One of the Crafternoon participants was very familiar with these seizures as both her children had them. She chose to depict the wolf's tooth in a very creative way: using coloured squares of fabric she represented the heat of fever contrasted with the coolness provided by the amulet, "The warm colours represent fever, which is spreading and taking over the body, until it comes up against the amulet - then it disappears and we're left with a tiny, calm, cool colour." 

A personal favourite is this 3D baby carrier. Here's the maker's account of her handiwork:

"My quilt piece was inspired by a small (15 cm) model of a Saami cradle made of wood covered with leather and cloth from Sweden. I was super happy to find it; it brought back happy memories of Sweden were Abel is born on the first day of snow during a cold but beautiful winter. We spent those days outside walking in the snow or skating on the ice, and Abel napped outside, tucked in a sheepskin blanket to keep him warm in the freezing cold (it sounds funny, but many mothers do this in Scandinavia). For me, the little cradle became a symbol of happy times carrying, nursing and caring for my newborn in nature, while being free to go anywhere."


This Pitt Rivers Crafternoon quilt is a tactile educational object as well as a testament to what can be achieved together in the presence of our kids! If you visit the Museum this spring, please do check it out!

                                              

Crafternoon is now back at home in the Jericho Community Centre on Tuesdays from 2–4pm. Check our website for information and updates.

Sarah Cullen, Crafternoon

Oxfordshire Travellers' Stories Project

"Socks", belonging to the Collins family at the Redbridge site.

Over the last six months, the Museums Outreach Office and VERVE have been working alongside Oxfordshire County Council's Family Learning team (Oxfordshire Skills and Learning Service) and the Museum of Oxford with four of Oxfordshire’s Traveller communities: Redbridge, Middle Ground, East Challow and Bloxham.

The collaboration aims to capture something of the lives of these different local Traveller communities - encouraging them to tell their own stories, relate their families’ cultural tales and represent themselves through objects, pictures and oral history. All these things are integral to their values, history and lifestyle. 

Traveller groups are under-represented museum visitors, so this ASPIRE-funded project aims to raise awareness of the local museums among these communities, and encourage further engagement and visits in the future.

Diana makes blankets for any new babies
born at East Challow, Wantage (her
grandmother taught her how to make them

Initially, each of the four groups spent some time with the Family Learning team discussing which objects reflected their Traveller community and history. Now the groups are developing work for display in an exhibition this winter to be held jointly at the Pitt Rivers Museum and the Museum of Oxford. While each of the four groups have chosen to represent themselves through different objects - taking photographs, writing and telling stories, making model wagons, knitting blankets and decorating 'Crown Derby' papier mache plates - they have also been working on their literacy and computer skills. As the exhibition takes shape, Family Learning will continue to work with the groups by creating trails, captioning work and presenting their story. 

The Oxford University Museum’s Outreach team have been busy visiting the four sites, joining the local Children Centres and Mobile Children’s Centre bus, taking museum handling objects out, and meeting different members of each community. They have particularly enjoyed the opportunity to learn more about Traveller culture and lifestyle, which in turn has highlighted how many misconceptions exist with regards to education, jobs, lifestyle and sites.

Chantelle collects porcelain dolls and displays
them on her trailer at Middle Ground site, Wheatley

During the Easter holidays, the Redbridge and Middle Ground groups visited the Pitt Rivers Museum to have a guided tour, handle objects from the collections, and take part in craft activities such as drum and mask-making. The majority of the group had never visited either museum before, so it was an eye-opener to many!

Several weeks later during the summer holidays, one of the Middle Ground families visited the Museum of Oxford and took a tour behind the scenes. They spent time exploring Oxford’s stories through a wide range of objects. Some of these were surprisingly familiar like the Victorian stove from West Oxford, which reminded a group member of her mother’s old stove:

“It’s amazing, everything here has a story. We used to have a stove just like that. It was my Mum’s when we were travelling. I love stoves like that.” (Chantelle, visit to the Museum of Oxford).

Other objects were less familiar and even a little spooky, including 'Giles the Skeleton' and one of the Museum’s old wax dummies! The youngest member of the group was particularly interested in the Museum’s Civil War collection and was inspired to paint himself dressed up as a Cavalier soldier (see photo). The group enjoyed exploring the gallery space where their work will be displayed later this year and the Museum is looking forward to welcoming other families from the project once the exhibition is in place. Do come and visit us then!

Work with the four groups will continue in the autumn in preparation for the exhibition at:

• Museum of Oxford                                                   21 November 2014 – 10 January 2015

• Pitt Rivers Museum                                                   5 December 2014 – 18 January 2015 

Maya Herbolzheimer (Pitt Rivers Museum)
Antonia Harland-Lang (Museum of Oxford)
Nicola Bird (Oxford University Museums)

Sarah Levete (Oxfordshire County Council, Oxfordshire Skills and Learning Service, Family Learning Tutor Coordinator)